Saturday, November 15, 2008

Making an Invisible Minority Less Invisible

Making an Invisible Minority Less Invisibleby Walter Brasch

During the presidential campaign, Barack Obama was called mentallyunstable; his supporters were called unpatriotic. At Sarah Palinrallies, in newspaper letters-to-the-editor, on conservative radio andTV talk shows, supporters spewed hatreds, resorting to the Bush tacticsof fear mongering to support their own candidate.

At many rallies, the word "kill" was often shouted. The ultra rightwing, which infiltrated the McCain campaign, told us Obama is a (gasp!)Muslim, not understanding that not only isn't Obama a Muslim, but thatthe Constitution prohibits religion as a test for federal office.Falsely linking Muslim to terrorist, these ultra-patriots said thatObama pals around with terrorists. They said Obama is a thief, a liar,and a scoundrel.

Not so subtly disguised beneath a lot of the hatred is the reality thatObama is multiracial, and that means he isn't White. Some of the racismisn't even covert. In comments to newspapers and on radio, Obama wascalled "Monkey ears" and other terms that would denigrate every personof color. At one rally, a McCain-Palin supporter waved around a stuffedmonkey with a blue-and-white headband with one word: Obama. It didn'teven take an investigative journalist to find supporters who brazenlyclaimed they just couldn't vote for anyone who's "colored"; many evenused even more derogatory terms.

Ironically, although the establishment media did an admirable job ofcovering speeches, they did a poor job of covering the racial hatredpresent at rallies. It was up to sites like Keystone Progress, whichvideotaped numerous rallies and posted them on You Tube, to help anation better understand not only the political division but the racialhatreds that still exist in the country. Mike Morrill of KeystoneProgress says that he noted a significant difference not only betweenthe Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin rallies--"hope versus fear"--but moreracist anger in the rallies where Palin was the primary speaker.

There is still that anger and fear among a part of the conservativemovement, but, something changed with the election.On television, you'll find there are more Blacks in TV commercials. MoreBlacks are being interviewed. The news media have developed afascination with Blacks who were in the Civil Rights movement of the'60s. Blacks whose parents were in the civil rights movement. Blacks whowere first time voters.Barack Obama's campaign and election have not only revitalized America'sBlack population, they have revitalized media interest in minorities.

For a couple of centuries, most newsrooms were staffed only by Whitemen. And then there were a few women. And then a few other minorities.Blacks. Latinos. Asian-Americans. Native Americans. Jews. And anoccasional Buddhist or Muslim. Staffing has come a long way. Almost 14percent of newsrooms have at least one minority, up from 4 percent 30years ago, according to studies conducted by the American Society ofNewspaper Editors. However, one-third of America is composed ofminorities, so there is still a long way to go. Even today, four decadesafter Martin Luther King's murder, and with a heavy campaign by severaljournalism organizations, about 40 percent of all newspaper newsroomsstill have no minorities.In many rural and suburban cities, just about the only time a newspaperreader sees a minority in a picture is not for an achievement, with theexception of the sports pages, but during an arrest.

For a long time, radio believed that a white male voice was moreauthoritative than a female voice, or a voice that sounded Black. Formost of TV's first 20 years, there were no Blacks on air. And when theCivil Rights movement in the 1960s shocked America to realize thatBlacks might be just as competent as Whites, TV reluctantly hiredBlacks--as long as they looked, acted, and spoke White.

We're now seeing more coverage of Blacks About Blacks. If it isn't a"fad," if the media, especially TV, don't return to their never-endingfocus upon celebrities and fluff, maybe in four years there will be moreminorities in our newsrooms, and Americans will understand that mostBlacks aren't on welfare, in gangs, or in prison.